


we are so fragile and our cracking bones make noise

by alaynerivers



Category: Fleabag (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 14:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19230562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alaynerivers/pseuds/alaynerivers
Summary: She walks. She walks because there’s nothing else she can do, and mascara is running down her cheeks, and this is the second time in a week that she’s been on the street and crying over this man. Fuck you, she tries to think, but it doesn’t work. I love you, she thinks instead, and it wrangles and echoes in her head. I miss you. I miss you already.





	we are so fragile and our cracking bones make noise

She walks. She walks because there’s nothing else she can do, and mascara is running down her cheeks, and this is the second time in a week that she’s been on the street and crying over this man. Fuck you, she tries to think, but it doesn’t work. I love you, she thinks instead, and it wrangles and echoes in her head. I miss you. I miss you already.

 

She’s in at the cafe before she quite realizes it, before her mind catches up with her body. She digs the ice cream out of the freezer. She’d bought back when everything had been fucked up with Boo, and Boo had needed the ice cream consolation that comes with a break-up. The carton is half empty and clearly past its due date, another remnant of her best friend. I killed her, she thinks. He couldn’t love me because I killed her.

 

She shakes her head, tries to shake the irrational thought out, walks back into the cafe to properly indulge, ends up stumbling over a chair. Her face connects with the floor, and fuck, her nose is bleeding again. The ice cream carton spilled onto the floor a few away.

 

This is how it started, she thinks, wiping the blood from her nose even as she winces. Let’s bookend it.

 

She ends up in the emergency room. Alone. Like she always feels. Claire is off running after Klare. Dad and his blushing bride (ew) are at a honeymoon suite somewhere around here before heading off on their more exotic vacation to Tahiti, and their phones will be off for the rest of the week. She doesn’t even know who else she could call.

 

The nurse is finishing with some bandages or something (who knows, she’s really not paying attention). And then he walks in and fuck everything. (Just like Boo had planned, she thinks wryly. She hurt herself and he felt bad and he came to her.)

 

He doesn’t say anything. He just watches her. And the weight of his gaze is comforting and suffocating all once.

 

“Hello, Father, so kind of you to come and visit. Is the patient one of your parishioners?” the cheerful nurse chirps.

 

She snorts at that, but it hurts, so it morphs into some strange kind of snort-whimper combo. (So much for staying sexy.)

 

“Something like that,” he says. He’s staring at the floor like he would rather be anywhere but here, like he wishes he could down a G&T. Or maybe like he’s somehow managed to have a few already?

 

That had been in her plans, she realizes. Somewhere in the back of her head, she realizes ice cream and whatever alcohol had been lying around were her true plans for tonight. She’d just wanted to get through to tomorrow without thinking or feeling any more than necessary.

 

So much for that.

 

“Well,” the nurse intones, obliviously, “That should be all we need to do for you right now, and it looks like you have someone to help get you home.”

 

“No, that-” “Of course.”

 

“I really can go by myself.”

 

The nurse eyes her warily. “Given some of the pain medication you’ve been given, having someone take you would be best.”

 

She considers putting up a fight and then slumps. She barely has enough energy to handle all this. She’ll just get home and then sleep and then tomorrow will come with ice cream and tequila and short term oblivion.

 

She’s taken out on a wheelchair. (It’s my nose that was broken, not my legs, she’d say to her friends if she hadn’t said goodbye.) He hails a taxi, and they’re waiting.

 

“How did you even know I was here?” she asks.

 

“They called Claire, as your emergency contact. She was at the airport about to get on a plane, and she called me.”

 

That actually makes some sense. Fuck.

 

They get into the taxi, without saying another word. She’s not sure she’s capable of not bursting out into something sentimental or crude, and it could go either way at this point. It’s unclear which would be worst.

 

“My sister decided to run through the airport and declare her love because of your speech.” Oh, bloody hell.

 

He chuckles at this. “She did?”

 

“Yes. Seems like she’s getting her happy ending. Like, romantic comedy happy ending”

 

He lowers his voice, makes it intimate, “She deserves it.”

 

“She does.” (Do I though? she thinks).

 

“You do, too,” he says, and of course, he knows what to say. He’s reaching for her hand. Fingers entwine, and this is what she is going to get of him. It’s not really what she wants, but it’s more than she was even supposed to get.

 

When they get to her flat, he follows her in. “Well, it looks like it’s time for me to get some rest and you to go back home,” she states with all the willpower she can muster.

 

He’s hesitating, shuffling. It’s adorable. Fuck. “I’d feel better if I could stay for the night.”

 

Fuckity fuck fuck fuck. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea…” she says.

 

“I’ll just take the couch,” he says. (While I sleep in the bed you fucked me in last night, she wants to say, but doesn’t).

 

“That still-” “Please?”

 

Who is she to deny him? “Alright. There are extra pillows and blankets in the cupboard.” She rushes into her room and closes the door. She gets ready for bed, exhaustion in every limb. She puts on her sloppiest sweats. She’s not seducing him, and her sleepwear needs to be the point on that exclamation.

 

She tosses and turns. Her body is so tired, but her brain is buzzing. She still can’t get to sleep.

 

An hour later, she sneaks into the living room. He’s asleep. She supposes the alcohol he probably had has something to do with it. She stares at him now, drinks him in instead. He is so beautiful to her, even awkwardly arranged on her couch. Every part of him. Well, yes, including that part, but right now, she’s staring at neck and cheek and arm. She tries to imprint him, wishes she was her stepmother for the first time ever. Wants to draw him so that she can keep him. She settles for an elicit quick photo on her phone. Even the flash doesn’t wake him up. Eventually, she slinks into her room, and sleep comes.

 

When she checks the next morning, he’s gone. She’s not even a little surprised.


End file.
